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In today’s world of smartphones, usage is extensive. All sorts of smartphones are being used for about everything from banking to tasking, socializing, shopping and everything a smartphone user can think of! What about privacy and security? Continue reading →

Who’s leading the mobile banking revolution? Consumers. They’re pushing for banks to do more with the mobile channel — and they’re rewarding banks that answer the call by paying overdue debts faster and responding quickly to fraud alerts. Continue reading →

When Return Path released our last mobile study in April 2012, the number emails opened on smartphones was about to overtake opens from both desktop clients and webmail.

Seven months later, our newest study finds that users in the U.S. and Canada largely check email from their phones. We also find that people prefer to open retail emails on their smartphones, while banking emails–perhaps due to mistrust from phishing–are mostly opened from desktop email clients like Outlook.

The key takeaway for marketers? While the best mobile strategy depends largely on your own data, industry and region, your email marketing efforts should be optimized for both mobile and the desktop to ensure maximum campaign ROI.

Click on the image to the right to view the full infographic. You’ll learn:

The percentage of users in North America, Brazil,
France and Germany that open emails on mobile devices

The percentage of email opened by industry, such as
retail and banking

How Apple devices appear to dominate emails opens,
and why this may not be the full story

As Google, Apple, Paypal, Mastercard and the entire banking community fights over mobile money, we decided to look to the power users to find out what the near future of monetary exchange might look like. The World Bank’s treasure trove of open data on mobile banking is a well stocked pantry for the data hungry. Welcome to our first data snack and enjoy the graph we created below.

Percentage of Population Using Mobile MoneySeparated by Income Levels

We looked at the top ten countries in percent of population having used their phones to send and receive money. Turns out, even in countries with the highest use – countries that are all among the world’s poorest) – it remains the poor within those countries who use mobile financial services more frequently. In each of the ten countries, the poor used mobile banking more than the rich.. A higher percentage of the bottom 40% in income were users compared with the top 60%.

The low income surprise

Kenya leads the world in mobile banking due to the trifecta of infrastructure (mmm sub sea fibre optics), government support, and the community banking paradigm exploded by Safaricom’s M-Pesa. In fact, as you can glean from our infographic, over 70% of the population using their cell phones to do some banking.

From the image above, we see that the lighter ribbons – referring to the low-income users – are larger for both those that receive mobile money with their phones (green) and, interestingly, those that send (red) as well. The trend is similar for each of these countries which lead the world in mobile money use.

Particularly striking differences occur in Somalia and Swaziland, where relatively few of the wealthy use mobile money compared with the poor.

Revolving around the Mobile Revolution

We decided to use the circular layout – leveraging Krzywinski et al’s beautiful genomics-oriented Circos – to capture the high data density while letting the reader easily explore the graph themselves. For example, Algeria’s (DZA) thin dark red ribbon shows that few of the wealthy send money, but nearly three times as many of the rich in the North African country (dark green) have received funds with their phone.

The overbanked?

There’s a number of questions suggested by this take and we look forward to exploring the data further. Why aren’t the wealthier using mobile money? Perhaps it’s because there’s a transaction value above which mobile doesn’t make sense. Or, perhaps they have more access to ‘traditional’ banking methods and haven’t felt the need to switch, or are able to pay for advantages that outweigh any conveniences of mobile.

We’re looking forward to looking deeper into these questions and anticipating and facilitating the growth of mobile money. The data is available for an additional 50 countries, and we only look at a small fraction of the results here. As mobile money alters international economics, it might be that us plastic credit card and paper money users are… overbanked?

With all the new technologies sprouting up before our very eyes, you would think that the banking industry would be making some advances of their own. While online banking and other products and services have moved the industry into the future, banking as a whole seems to have flat-lined in terms of recent innovation. Learn more about the current state of retail banking.

JP Morgan’s news about a multi-billion dollar loss has crushed the banking industries revitalization and brought up more questions and the need for regulation. Jamie Dimon revealed a $2 Billion loss in JP Morgan’s Chief Investment Office. Obviously the bank got caught in the highly speculative segment of “synthetic” assets. Dimon explained that the net loss after off-setting other gains will amount somewhere around $800 million with potential to grow over the next couple of quarters.

The news has caused new uncertainty and has fueled new regulation supporter’s case. Indeed, regulation and government oversight are two major topics of this year’s election. The country’s economy has suffered a great deal in the aftermath of the financial crisis and continues to do so. JP Morgan’s blunder has not helped in making things better. It has to be seen what is unfolding in this case and what else is attached to it. Usually when things like this happen, someone else comes out of the bushes admitting the same misery.

Considering the damage such business practices cause for the economy and trust in the banking system, there is no way that the system can continue without serious regulation and oversight. Opponents of new regulations attempts to save the status quo now sound more like crying children complaining they can’t have more candy. This will clearly change the course of political campaigns of both parties in the coming election regarding regulation.

The banking industry has already major reputation problems and can hardly draw a positive opinion from Main Street America. Recent careful attempts of some major players to approach the problem and make things better are facing a complete reset with the newest developments. The immediate question for everyone is now, “what else is luring” and what else have people to endure. If there was any trust left or rebuild, it certainly didn’t get better.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon said the firm lost about $2 billion on synthetic credit securities after an “egregious’” failure in its chief investment office, which the bank says focuses on hedging.

“This portfolio has proven to be riskier, more volatile and less effective as an economic hedge than the firm previously believed,” the New York-based company said today in a quarterly securities filing. JPMorgan declined 5.5 percent to $38.50 in extended trading at 5:55 p.m. in New York...More

This is a bad time for bankers to lose $2 Billion while speculating. Not that there is a good time to lose such an amount of money, but in an election year at hand and lots of regulation calls circulating all over the place, Dimon didn’t do the industry a good service. A lot of this case sounds very familiar and will raise some eyebrows with people on main street, especially since JP Morgan was always presented as the “smartest” bank in the country.

“A lot of people in our industry haven’t had very diverse experiences. So they don’t have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions without a broad perspective on the problem. The broader one’s understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have”.-Steve Jobs-

Those who say it cannot be done, shouldn’t interrupt the people doing it”.

-Unknown-

Social Media, Marketing and Communications Leader with practical experience in the banking/financial industry, technology, sports/soccer and hospitality.

Objective:Helping companies to raise visibility, public perception, social “Klout” and increasing value and bottom line.

Developed and maintained business relationships with Fortune 100 companies, government agencies and businesses of all sizes

Negotiated and closed $multi-million relationship and contracts.

Outperforming corporate benchmarks in high stress and pressure environment

Transformed local small business into business with international reputation

30 International appearances for German U18 Soccer National Team, professional player at 1.FC Koeln, Germany

Summary of Experiences:

Over 15 years in the Banking and Financial Industry – International Experience

Retail Banking

Business and Commercial Banking

International Banking

Call Center Management

Mutual Fund Compliance and Internal Control

12 years combined Technology, Internet and Social Media – International Experience

Business Development

Marketing

Public Relations, Communications

Partnerships

Professional Services

Other Experiences:

Public speaking

Representing major banks and technology companies at public events

Ex-professional soccer player

Scuba Diver Instructor

General management of hospitality business.

Competitive Edge:

Understanding, ability and resources to connect bottom line oriented businesses to the opportunity rich social media world. Ability to develop your social media strategy and monetize on your social media efforts.